Friday, July 25, 2014

For going on six months now I have been
doing an on-again/off-again read/reread of favorite or suggested
sandbox products. Unbidden the same driving question keeps popping into my broken brain:
what particular set of things makes this product so damn good? (What
makes it shitty or mediocre being an interesting and useful question
for another time.)

I have something like 30 unfinished
blog posts beating, beating in tell-tale-heart urgency from my draft
box and some of them are various attempts to move those margin notes
into a blog series. Reckon it's time to whip those recalcitrant posts
into publishable shape.

Before I kick off the series though let
me set the frame. Imagine the standard disclaimer here these elements
are what make a particular sandbox pop me for me, your own mileage
may vary blah blah blah. You will note that how I frame the criteria
precludes a number of much beloved sandboxes and hex-crawls.

Lines had to be drawn.

That said I am curious to hear if you
the reader were making this list what would you include? What
particular thing inspires you or helps you run it? And what products
would you through on your High Fidelity Top Five list?

What constitutes an exemplary sandbox
adventure:

Main frame is a large, but bounded
wilderness or outdoors environment.

Open ended and allows (may even explicitly plan) for
different outcomes and play (though most often having loose overall
goals or player motivations wired in).

Combines the adventure-site exploration
with another deep axis (political maneuvering, interesting NPC goals,
timelines or whatever) to make it multi-dimensional.

Friday, July 11, 2014

I am a little behind in prepping for the Boot Hill Cantons mini-campaign I was going on about a few days back, but here's something of potentially wider use for folks running Boot Hill and other western campaigns. Texas-sized thanks to those beautiful broken minds on this Google Plus thread that helped me crowdsource the baroquely over-done table at the bottom.

Starting Gear

All
starting characters come with cheap but functional range clothes, bed
roll, canteen, poor-quality horse and $5 to their name. Roll on the
following charts for the rest of your gear.

Distinctive
Piece of Finery

Pick
or Roll d20 Once

1

Buckskin Jacket

2

No Name Poncho

3

Ten-Gallon Hat

4

Civil War kepi

5

Threadbare Butternut Confederate Artillery Jacket

6

Union Cavalry Uniform pants and suspenders

7

Furry Bear Coat

8

Top Hat

9

Sombrero, Campesino

10

Sombrero, Mariachi band-style

11

Bolo Tie

12

White Mexican Federale uniform, patched

13

Derby, arrow-stuck

14

Cowboy Hat, bullet ridden

15

Duster, bloody cuffed

16

Beaver Coat, full length

17

Spanish Boots, Spanish Leather

18

Fancy Mexican Riding Boots, silver spurred

19

Chaps, sequined

20

Calico Dress

Hogpieces
and Other Primary Killin' Implements

Roll
d10 Once

1

Repeating
Rifle, 9-shot

2

Double-Barrel
Shotgun

3

Fast
Draw Revolver, 5-shot

4

Fast
Draw Revolver, 6-shot

5

Single
Action Revolver, 5-shot

6

Single
Action Revolver, 6-shot

7

Buffalo
Rifle

8

Civil-War
Repeating Rifle

9

Repeating
Carbine, 6-shot

10

Three
Sticks of Dynamite, short fuse

More
Killin' Dee-vices

Roll
d10 or Pick Twice

1

Comanche
Lance

2

Big
Ass Bowie Knife

3

Throwing
Knife (x2)

4

Tomahawk

5

Single-Shot
Derringer (x2)

6

Two-Shot
Derringer

7

Old,
but Well-Oiled Cap & Ball Revolver

8

Long-Barrel
Revolver

9

Calvary
Sabre

10

Rusted
Scatter Gun, 10% chance of it exploding when fired.

Random
Crap

Roll
d100 Twice

01

Dead
US Marshal's Badge

02

Silver-Plated
Single Action Revolver

03

Tombstone

04

Three
coils of 60-foot rope

05

Small
herd of goats (five)

06

Stubborn
Old Mule named after an Old Sweetheart

07

Braying
donkey named King's Kent

08

Silent
mute “trail wife” but loyal

09

Hillbilly
Musket (treat as Army Rifle)

10

A
velvet-lined coffin

11

Silver
whiskey flask with monogram

12

30
Silver Dollars

13

Keg
of Gunpowder marked XXX

14

Ten
pounds of Deer Jerky

15

Three
jugs of corn liquor

16

Holy
Bible with cut out derringer space

17

Gold
snuff case

18

Two
pounds of chewing tobacco and spitoon

19

Bottle
of Scotch, peaty

20

Amputation
hacksaw

21

Prison
manacles and chain

22

A
set of spurs pitted and rusted

23

Rattlesnake,
live

24

Guitar or banjo

25

Lonesome-sounding harmonica

26

Grave-diggin' shovel

27

Pocket watch on chain, Dad's

28

The prospector's will

29

Bearer bonds (50% confederate)

30

William Blake poetry, slim volume

31

tobacco, wacky, 2 "twists"

32

Small pouch of gold dust

33

6 silver bullets

34

Assorted ladies hosiery

35

Deck of cards, marked

36

Deck of cards, unmarked

37

Piano tuning equipment (fork, hammer, mutes)﻿

38

Old cracker tin containing several peyote buttons﻿

39

Wooden
leg, pilfered

40

Dime
store novels, random assortment

41

music
box

42

String
of Chinese coins

43

One-horned
ox

44

Dentistry
kit

45

Undertaker's tools

46

Bible, natty

47

Miniature Vest Bible, steel-backed

48

Three sasquatch teeth

49

Scalps, notable figures

50

Scalps, comrades

51

Diploma, college

52

Dead or Alive Wanted poster, you

53

Dead or Alive poster, twin brother

54

Bullwhip﻿, lovingly maintained

55

Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment, Made From Genuine
Rattlesnakes

56

Pabst's Okay Special (22% alcohol, take 2 teaspoons 3x daily)

57

Dr. Wengert's Hepatica Pills

58

Dromgooles Bitters

59

The Mormon Elders' Damiana Wafers, for Strengthening the Brain,
Nerves, and Sexual Organs

60

Crane's Laxative Mint Chewing Gum

61

Kickapoo Indian Sagwa Renovator

62

Jayne's Vermifuge

63

Saddlebags with secret compartments

64

Ridiculously ornate shotgun, small bore, once used by a
Portuguese Duke to shoot partridges.

65

Worn but still razor-sharp skinning knife.

66

2 pound bag of coffee beans

67

Coffee hand mill

68

Autograph book

69

Ten Confederate gold pieces

70

Gold pocket watch

71

Vial of nitroglycerine with dropper

72

French's ladies' underwear, made in Chicago. Red satin &
black lace

73

Cargo manifest and letters taken off a Civil War
smuggler/blockade runner

74

Domino mask or red handkerchief, conceals identity perfectly

75

Crystal skull, stolen

76

Head in a box wrapped in brown paper and string

77

Last letter from a famous gunslinger

78

Hound dog, scrawny but tenacious

79

Child named William

80

Branding irons in small shapes that can be used to 'correct'
brands on cattle

Thursday, July 3, 2014

It's summer and I have been predictably
getting a little restless and low in the batteries. Time for another
mini-campaign to break up routine.

This time about I am going to
swing back to the murderous rapine of that Boot Hill (second edition)
one-shot I ran a while back. I'm unsure exactly how many sessions
this thing will go before it ends, but I think I am going to just
expand off of the last dust-up.

Keeping the same town (with a hex map
of the surrounding area) and keeping a scoring system in place.
Points are going to be scored either individually but
with the option to share for collective activities if the players
want to. For example if they rustle a herd of cattle they can take
individual shares of the point take (or one player takes all if he
decides to cross his fellow's and kill them off).

At
any rate one player is going to win--or at least several tie. That
should punch up the mayhem factor a few notches. It will be
interesting to see what happens with a variant of the Prisoner's
Dilemma game in place. Hell I will probably even throw in a prize for
the winner.

So
without any further adieu the revised Marauding Point System, local
NPCs and the starting hooks. (Hex map of Cantones County coming
later.)

Marauding Points

Each “combatant” killed: 50

Each scalp of a combatant taken: 10

Each non-combatant killed: -50

Each $1 of loot or bounty earned or
taken: 1

Total destruction of an inhabited
building: 20

Poor horse, mule, or donkey stolen: 20

Fair horse stolen: 30

Good horse stolen: 50

Excellent horse stolen: 100

Cattle per head rustled: 10

Sheep per head stolen: 5

Horse or Cattle Thief hung: 25

Getting killed: lose half your points

NPCs

Captain Ferral. Former Confederate
bushwacker, discharged from the Texas Rangers for being too psycho
tunes for that outfit. Meanest son of a bitch you ever met, though he
never killed a woman who didn't have it comin'. Heads up the
Moderators.

Jay Augustus Jissom. Semi-famous
cattleman and trail-breaker of the Jissom Trail. Has set up a dry
goods store in Cantones de Los Montanos to rival the monopoly of the
Evo's-- and consequently touched off the Cantones County War (the
Evo-backed Moderators vs. the Jissom Boys).

Claude Evo Jr.
Cattle baron son of the gunned down Claude Evo. A spitting image of
his father right on down to that damned bolo tie.

Frank Stripes. former doctor run out of
his Mississippi practice for unwholesome phrenological studies with
the craniums of dead convicts and vagabonds. Every once in a
while--deep into his jug of corn liquor--he will slip up and
introduce himself as “Phillip”.

Vilem “Bohemian Bill” Psanec.
Fastest Moravian in the West. Laying low in the area after the Bad
Rye Massacre. Has a fondness for slivovce. Officially neutral.

“Wild Bill” Hickock. Still in the
area after the big shoot out drowning his sorrows in whisky and
gambling. Fixin' to run on up to a little town called Deadwood.

Bat Masterson. What authorities there
are over in the county seat in Broken Oath City have employed this
dead-shot lawman to bring a little law and order to this side of the
county. He's rumored to have a six-month contract in place before he
moseys up to Dodge City.

Boss Peckerwood. Chubby, petulant
former opera singer. Chief foreman at the Big Moran Mine and colder than
a whore's heart on Sunday.

Paco and Tuco Ramirez. Twin brothers
and “comancheros” (traders who illicitly trade with the
Comanche).

Local News courtesy of Breezy
Pete

Reckon that the Moderators and The
Jissom Boys are hiring gunslingers seeing as they are evenly
matched with five pistoleros a piece. See each of their bosses for
hiring on.

It's said that the Ramirez brothers
want no one less than Bohemian Bill dead but of course are too
low down and yellow to do the deed themselves. They are offering 150
silver dollars to any one who cuts him down.

Speaking of the Ramirez brothers it
is said one can buy just about anything contraband in their back room
up to and including Comanche captives that they trade off for

Well and come to think of it speaking
of killing for profit, I reckon those locked out silver miners up
there want that old sow Boss Peckerwood dead too. Bet they'd be
willing to hand over a few boxes of dynamite and some proceeds from
the Western Federation of Miner's mutual aid fund to anyone who does
him in.

Claude Evo Jr. has been outdoing his
pa, no mean feat, in accumulatin' the biggest herd of longhorns
this side of the Little Pecos. Everybody knows it's through rustling
but who's going to stop the Big Man?

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

I am up to 18 unique monsters in the
Slumbering Ursine Dunes mini-sandbox (now in its fourth editing iteration and about to roll onto to take off), the monster bestiary now
starting rival the actual pointcrawl and adventure site write-ups in
size. A big fan of new critters to torment and befuddle players this,
naturally, makes me supremely happy.

To give readers a sense of the flavor
of these write-ups I am posting one of the new additions blog-side,
my weirdo twist on the Vodník, a watery “bogey-man” still
sometimes used to scare the living poo out of kids today back in the
mother land.

Vodník

No. Enc.: 1-2

Alignment: Chaotic (Evil)

Movement: 120’
(40’)

Armor Class: 4

Hit Dice: 4

Attacks: 1

Damage: 1d6 special (see below)

Save: F4

Morale: 10

Hoard Class: XX

XP: 300

It is said that among the Old Pahr
people that a pessimist is someone who thinks that things couldn't be
an worse--and that an optimist believes that it can! Pushing aside
the old wives tale that a surfeit of strong drink drives men to
melancholy, learned men attribute this pervading culture gloom to the
surfeit of malovelent spirits and faeries in that people's mythology.

A particularly nasty example of the
inimical Pahr spirit is the vodník, a male water nymph of a
particularly sour and murderous nature. Vodník often lurk at the
edges of lakes and rivers waiting for lone or small groups of village
folk

Vodník are invisible in the the water
before they strike, but rise as a translucent seeming serpent when
they do. Each strike does 1d6 damage but worse is that the spirit
serpent will attempt to drag the victim down to a watery doom.
Failure to save vs. paralysis will mean that the victim is dragged
into the water.

Once the Vodník has a victim under
water it will shift into its true form, a pot-bellied old man covered
in fine scales, and concentrate on drowning the hapless victim. It
will drown a person in 1d6+1 rounds a process that can only be
stopped with the creature's death.

The Vodník will only take one hit
point of damage from piercing or slashing weapons, but takes full
damage as normal. Fire magic will have no effect on the monster.
Electrical magic will double in intensity. Casting Purify Food and
Water on the creature will kill it outright.

The Vodník will become strangely
mellow (read non-murderous) for 1d6 turns after the witching hour,
often appearing on rocks or floating on the water smoking a carved
pipe. Fishermen as such will often leave offerings of pipe weed to
placate local Vodníki.